[Dixielandjazz] FW: Mildred Bailey remembered

[Stan Brager]

Thank you once again, Bill. I just wrote about Mildred on the Duke Ellington
mail list (Duke-LYM) and discovered many who still remember the wonderful
way Mildred could tell her story when singing a song. Her sense of time and
rhythm was peerless as was her musical abilities. She is one of those few
singers who can rightly be called a musician.

My own personal favorites by Mildred include "Rockin" Chair", "Smoke
Dreams", "Down-Hearted Blues", "Shoutin' In That Amen Corner", "It's So
Peaceful In The Country", and, if you want to hear her tell a story,
"Weekend Of A Private Secretary".

I'm certain that others have their own favorites.

Stan
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Bill Haesler" <bhaesler at bigpond.net.au>
To: "dixieland jazz mail list" <dixielandjazz at ml.islandnet.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 12, 2005 6:01 PM
Subject: [Dixielandjazz] FW: Mildred Bailey remembered


> Dear friennds,
> This one via the Australian Dance Bands list.
> Long but a rewarding read.
> Kind regards,
> Bill.
>
> Fans Still Remember Jazz Singer
>
> Performer lived last years in Beekman
>
> by Craig Wolf
> Poughkeepsie Journal, May 10, 2005
>
> Although she's long gone from the American jazz scene, Mildred
> Bailey is not forgotten. What has been nearly forgotten, however, is
> her link to Dutchess County.
>
> Bailey was remembered last weekend in her native town of Tekoa,
> Wash., where a major gig, "Mildred Bailey Comes Home," was staged at
> the revived Tekoa Empire Theater and at the Metropolitan Theater in
> Spokane, Wash.
>
> The singer lived her last three years in the Town of Beekman and for
> seven previous years in Kent Cliffs, Putnam County. She died poor
> but famous at St. Francis Hospital in Poughkeepsie in 1951.
>
> Bailey was there in the early days of the transition of jazz into
> the big-band era, becoming the first female singer with the
> legendary Paul Whiteman Orchestra, helping Bing Crosby get an early
> break and teaming, both in marriage and performance, with
> vibraphonist Red Norvo. They were called "Mr. and Mrs. Swing."
>
> She had a high, small voice in a plump body. Dan Keberle, who
> directs the Spokane Jazz Orchestra, said hers was "not a typical
> jazz band kind of sound."
>
> "It's a little bit more pop-oriented, but not in a commercial sense.
> It sounds like it's music out of the '20s and even the teens."
>
> She peaked in the 1930s after a radio debut of Hoagy
> Carmichael's "Rockin' Chair" rocketed her to stardom. Since then,
> Bailey's star has faded into the oldies zone along with other
> musical greats. But she is remembered by jazz buffs.
>
> Sang ballads
>
> "She was way up there," said Tom Baldino of Beacon, who sings and
> plays guitar with the local band Nostalgia. "When Billie Holiday
> came along, she was sort of supplanted. She did a lot of ballads,
> and she was very good."
>
> Baldino remembers that when he was a teenager in the 1950s, there
> was a flurry of her tunes on the radio, likely a memorial revival
> after her death.
>
> Diana Sucich of Wappinger has come to know the story of Bailey,
> having found out that the Steinway grand piano she inherited from
> her father was once Bailey's. He bought it at an auction at Bailey's
> house.
>
> And Bailey's home, an early 1800s Federal-style stone and clapboard
> house, still stands on South Greenhaven Road near Stormville on what
> was known as Glad Gate Farm when Bailey bought it in 1948.
>
> She was to enjoy her idyllic country home only briefly. A long,
> untreated case of diabetes sapped the singer's voice and then her
> life.
>
> Her story begins in the little town of Tekoa, near the Idaho border.
> She was born Feb. 16, 1900, said Jim Price, a historian and retired
> journalist in Washington, who delved into Bailey's life story for a
> lecture to go with the concerts.
>
> "She ran away from home to Seattle at 17," said Price. She worked
> her way to California and was singing in a club in Los Angeles at
> 23, he said. Crosby was attending Gonzaga University in Spokane, and
> was asked to join a singing group that included Bailey's brother, Al
> Rinker.
>
> Price found that in 1925, Crosby's first group split up, but Crosby
> and Rinker stayed on and visited her in Hollywood to get pointers
> and find work.
>
> "She ends up lining them up, driving them to and arranging for the
> audition that gave them their first real job," Price said. That was
> with Fanchon and Marco, a top regional vaudeville circuit they
> played for 13 weeks.
>
> Crosby and Rinker were heard by scouts for bandleader Paul Whiteman,
> who hired them. With a third man, they became his Rhythm Boys.
>
> Then it was Crosby's turn to help Bailey, by setting up a sneak
> audition. With the band playing Hollywood, they persuaded her to
> give a party and invite Whiteman's entire orchestra.
>
> Whiteman was in the kitchen talking with trumpeter Bix Beiderbecke
> as Crosby and Rinker took Bailey aside and coaxed her to sing.
> Rinker played piano and Bailey sang "What Can I Say After I Say I'm
> Sorry."
>
> Whiteman burst out of the kitchen to see who was singing and on the
> spot invited Bailey to perform on his radio show the following
> Tuesday.
>
> It was a rocket to success, Price said. She became the nation's
> first full-time female singer with a big band.
>
> "Mildred was a pioneer and a major fixture and she made it possible
> for other singers," he said.
>
> Bailey was the link
>
> He also sees Bailey's role as a link between black American music
> and a white public that could not accept it directly.
>
> Bailey is often thought of as black, but this is not substantiated,
> he said. She was part Coeur D'Alene Indian, and, Price
> added, "Mildred was heavily influenced as a young teenager" by black
> musicians. Later in her career, she regularly recorded and performed
> with blacks. Price said there are accounts claiming she lost a
> network radio show because half her guests were black.
>
> "If Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith were the pioneers of nationally known
> jazz singing and Ethel Waters, who was more white-influenced because
> she grew up in the North, was the bridge, then Mildred Bailey was
> waiting on the other side of that bridge," Price said.
>
> Disease started slowing her down early. She rallied during World War
> II to cut some fundraising records.
>
> But back to Dutchess.
>
> When Bailey's health and finances were failing in 1949, Bing Crosby
> bailed her out by paying her bills at St. Francis Hospital, along
> with Frank Sinatra and Jimmy Van Heusen, after composer Alec Wilder
> had found her "very, very ill and penniless" there, and called in
> some friends.
>
> Price said Crosby later paid off the mortgage on her home, further
> repaying Bailey's early favors and capping a lifelong friendship.
>
> On Dec. 12, 1951, Bailey succumbed to complications of diabetes.
>
> Her funeral was in New York, and was big news at the time. She was
> cremated.
>
> Though long divorced from Norvo, whom Price calls, "the best friend
> Mildred Bailey ever had," Norvo re-entered the scene at this point.
>
> Norvo and Rinker took the urn of Bailey's ashes back to Dutchess
> County some days after the funeral. They went to Bailey's house and
> scattered the ashes on the property.
>
>
>
>